Gee Oh Dee

My mother was the only other person in the room, the only other sound was the persistent beat of Gramma’s heart monitor. Mom motioned for me to sit next to her beside the bed and said to Gramma “ Mom, Jack is here to see you.” Gramma’s eyes were glued shut with sleep secretions, her face hung sallow off her bones. I watched her lips tremble for a second and heard the faintest of wheezes. That’s when I turned my heard away to press back the stinging in my eyes and sinuses. This is it, she is going to die today. Mom held her hand, which was blackened with constant bruising , heavy medications had left her flesh the consistency of overcooked chicken and the slightest touch liquefied her muscles and turned her skin a dark viscous color. She had been like this for almost a year, in this “home” filled with the mediciney smell of industrial cleanser, all alone with her memories and the other elderly who had given up
and were waiting to die. This was a bad place, a place that I hated and never wanted to be. This was a forlorn state of being, and as I sat there watching her, watching this fading image of a person I only knew in living color, I wondered what would make a person persist in this state, when death was within reach, why they didn’t float down the tunnel and into the light, why they didn’t leave the pain and suffering of this world behind and ascend to the next glorious level of existence at the promised right hand of our father. Was it a passion and reverence for life? Was it to settle unfinished business and bid farewell to loved ones? Was it waiting for the gates of eternity to open and to rise out of the mortal coil, carving a blazing trail of ethereal beauty through all seven dimensions of God’s divine creation?

No.
Of course not.

They persist in their tortured corporeal forms because their alternative is the abyss, the inky black void of non existence, and they are afraid. Yes, afraid because life is warm and life is good and death is colder than outer space. They say death is the unknown but I disagree, death is so terrifying because we ALL know what the void is, it’s where we came from, and somewhere deep in the recess of our beings we know the horror and agony of Nothing.

“the dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive”-Pvt. Joker Full Metal Jacket

I heard someone once speak about how the here and now is heaven, the best its going to get, and to start enjoying it because it’s the only respite we get from the big dark empty. The terror must be unspeakably powerful to make person choose constant agony, the worst experience in life, the persistent state of incredible pain and torment, over the cold comfort of nothingness. I don’t believe in god or heaven but not because it’s all stories about clouds and saints and puppy farms where we can chase squirrels forever. No, I don’t believe because people have to be convinced that a deity exists, they have to be threatened with punishment to obey the odd social morays and taboos of their particular sect or religion. I don’t believe because If my mother hadn’t built an invisible boogeyman in my mind to keep me from kicking my sister and playing with my peepee than never in a million years could I have dreamed up such a ridiculous circumstance. I just would have known, this is what is and it is good, and I shall cherish it throughout all my grass stained dirty faced days. Most of all I don't believe because I watched a woman wither and die, and never once did I see a glimmer of hope in her eyes that something better lay beyond. I only saw pain, fear and pain.

Don’t misunderstand me, this doesn’t make me amoral, far from it, I am big on life and living. I’m all about getting along with each other and attempting squeeze the maximum fun factor out of every minute of my lifetime. If I had things my way, we would all be running around in an H.R. Puff n’ Stuff ,tripped out, super fantasy porno, constantly eating awesome food, drinking the good wine, and getting our sex organs pampered with over stimulation. I guess in lieu of that reality I’ll just have to make due with what I got. I’m just not about to live my life in accordance with arcane rules and standards in order to gain entrance into some misty fairy land at the other end of the space time continuum. Especially when it generally requires depriving myself of some of life’s finest pleasures and arbitrarily hating someone else, who otherwise could be an potential super friend and good time pal, based on their race, creed, color, belief system, or a thousand year old blood feud. All set.

Now for any of you who are true believers out there, for those of you who think that my heathen ass is going to perish in eternal heck fire for my blasphemous stance on the afterlife; I sincerely hope that I am mistaken. I hope there is something beyond the inconceivable lack of substance that awaits us in the end. I hope I die and wake up in the supermarket, with all the pizza and peanut butter cup ice cream I can eat. I hope I end up in the Elysian fields (Elysian Park will do; on a Sunday afternoon in springtime when the Mexican families are having barbecues and their kids are taking swings at piñata stuffed with sugary goodness.). Hell, I hope I wake up in the DMV in Pawtucket Rhode Island, a fate worse than death some might say, but hey, something , ANYTHING is better than nothing. The problem is, it remains very much unknowable so I try not to worry about it and attempt to deal more with the here and now. As far as Mr.Death is concerned, the check is in the mail, it’s not like we won’t find out eventually, so in a hopeful conclusion to this otherwise dour and troubling piece, I say we all should cross that bridge when we get there, because maybe the reason nobody comes back from the dead to tell us all about it is because its so sweet, so RAD that they don’t want to ruin the surprise.

…and they better not eat all the god damned pizza, lest afterlife asses need kicking.